And then there are those pesky questions: will we recognize anyone at our 1 millionth high school reunion? Does middle-age spread increase exponentially as eternal life marches on? And does eternal life include shopping?
I am, of course, kidding, but only to make the point that for many of us, eternity and eternal life is an idea without much content. Most of scriptural descriptions we have are clearly poetical, and the church’s tradition has been more interested in matters of accountability and redemption than a positive, comprehensible description of eternal life.
Where church doctrine has left blanks, writers and theologians have drawn pictures. But from Dante to C.S. Lewis to Sartre to the authors of the “Left Behind” books, the most compelling views of eternal life have really been those about eternal punishment – and why it should be avoided, at all costs. Most attempts to describe a positive view of eternity have as much attraction to modern minds as those Victorian hymns that saw heaven as perfected English society, but one that still segregated between high tea for some and afternoon tea and dinner for others.
As I turn 50, I find the question of eternal life a bit more gripping than it was when I was 21, or 39. And it’s not only because, in the normal course of life, I am closer to opening a door to eternity than I was in earlier years; it’s also because in my 50 years, despite occasional hardships, pains, and disappointment, I have discovered in this life a great deal of meaning, many blessings, much joy, and more love than I deserve. And since I have found so much good in this side of eternity, whatever else eternal life may mean, unless it connects to these important – and indeed, life-giving – aspects of the life I have known, it has little appeal.
And perhaps that is why, as life has continued to unfold for me, I have found myself less fascinated by theological musings about eternal life, and more excited about the story of Jesus, more connected to the Church’s proclamation of his Good News, and more animated by the deepening relationship with God that I have discovered in my walk with Jesus. For it is in these, and not in doctrinal speculation, that I have found intimations of eternal life.
After 22 years as a priest, I am only now beginning to appreciate adequately St. John’s words: “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
In other words, I have learned – and am learning –that eternal life is not only something for the future, on the other side of death; eternal life is especially about this life, and about our relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
I find it both reassuring and more than a bit challenging that the life we are already living is a part of eternal life: reassuring because it means that the good we encounter and embody and experience is part of something that will last forever, and challenging precisely because of that – it suggests that what we do, and how we live and love, is an enduring part of our contribution to eternity.
In a perverse sort of way, I sometimes wish that this weren't so. On days when I have lived life far from the mark, during times in my life when I have walked paths that led to the edge of a cliff – at such times, I could wish that all this would be left entirely behind, and that some future eternity would include a heavenly amnesia, forgetting all that is past as we played harps in billowy clouds set in Tiffany-blue skies.
But if eternal life is knowing God, then I cannot believe that who we are, and what we have been, will not continue. For I have discovered, that as I grow in the knowledge and love of God, I become more myself, more the person created in the image of God, more the one who is loved unconditionally and unreservedly. Knowing God has helped me to know myself. And that knowledge, both of God and of myself, will, I believe, continue as eternal life stretches through and beyond this present life. As for the pain, the rejection, the suffering, the sin – I don’t think they will be obliterated as much as they will be healed, as they are being healed right now, through knowing God and encountering God in Jesus Christ. For who we are is not only the good, but also the wounds and the bad judgments and the harm. We are not perfect, but we are called to be perfected – something that can happen, in the words of St. John, through knowing “the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom [God has] sent.”
This past Thursday we celebrated the feast of the Ascension, when we were reminded once again of just how great a value God places on us. The Ascension, marking the assumption of humanity into the Godhead, is, in a sense, the completion of the Incarnation: God became human, and, through Jesus, humanity enters the divine.
We, unlike Jesus Christ, are not perfect God and perfect humanity. However, through the grace of God’s love, we have been adopted into the eternal life that is foreshadowed in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. That eternal life may include such milestones as turning age 50, for it is not discontinuous with the eternal life that lies ahead. Eternal life includes the love we have known, the good we have accomplished, the joy have we have experienced. But it also includes disappointments, and hurts, and sins we have committed and which have been committed against us. As eternal life continues, God calls us to give those disappointments, and hurts, and sins to him, where they will be forgiven, and where we will be healed and transformed. As eternal life continues, God calls us to give to him the love we have known, the good we have accomplished, the joy have we have experienced – where they will be magnified, perfected and transformed.
Years ago, as I pronounced the words of absolution at one of my first masses, I was struck by this phrase “by the power of the Holy Spirit keep you in eternal life” – not grant us eternal life, not restore us to eternal life, but keep us in eternal life – keep us in the eternal life in which we were already.
I find it comforting that eternal life is not just for the perfect, but also for those of us who fall short of the mark, and who find ourselves in constant need of the saving presence of “the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom [God has] sent.”
I certainly don’t want to spend eternity in the metaphorical equivalent of eating ham every day, and I suspect the way to avoid that is to plunge more deeply into the source of eternity. By walking with God, we can find healing and strengthening. We can find our true identity. And we can find eternal life is not a destination that lies somewhere out there, but an adventure that can bring us through 50 years and more, and will continue beyond time, when knowing and loving God becomes life itself.
Amen